Last year’s inaugural Proof of Keys day didn’t see massive amounts of bitcoin withdrawn judging by onchain data – but it did serve to educate a community. Trace Mayer’s call to arms also put exchanges on notice, with some disabling withdrawals, citing unscheduled maintenance. Here’s what the crypto community has to say about today’s event, which coincides with another watershed – Bitcoin’s 11th birthday.
Also read: A Deep Dive Into Satoshi’s 11-Year Old Bitcoin Genesis Block
Proof of Keys Day MKII
“All you HODLers of Last Resort, I encourage you to declare and enforce your monetary sovereignty.” So decreed Trace Mayer on January 3, 2020, metaphorically cutting the ribbon on the second ever Proof of Keys. The date is of course significant for marking the anniversary of when Bitcoin’s genesis block was mined.
For its second year, Proof of Keys day sees bitcoiners encouraged to withdraw their crypto from centralized exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase and store it in a noncustodial wallet. The motivations for doing so are obvious given the downfall of Mt. Gox, Canada’s Quadriga and Einstein exchanges, and hacks perpetrated against the likes of Cryptopia and Bitfinex. In the first quarter of 2019 alone, the amount of capital stolen in crypto-related scams and frauds topped $1.2 billion.
“Jan 3rd is a particularly important day for crypto users who care about financial sovereignty,” observed Namebase CEO Tieshun in an email sent out today. The decentralized DNS is on the verge of launching and chose Proof of Keys day to unveil its waiting list. The crypto project is one of many to have embraced the initiative, with Shapeshift pointing out an additional benefit of participating:
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